


No Peter Pan

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 21:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry Mills isn't crazy, no matter what his mom wants him to believe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Peter Pan

Henry was seven when he realised there was something weird about Storybrooke.

It wasn’t just because his mom never, ever, ever changed. It was because nothing ever changed, not even a little bit. Mom’s hair never grew, even though his did. Mom’s face never changed. She smiled and tucked him in at night and always looked exactly the same.

He thought it was special mom-magic for a long time, until he went to school.

That was when he realised the people he went to Kindergarten with weren’t in his class anymore. They were still in Kindergarten. They had birthdays and acted like they were just like him, but when he moved into second grade, they were still in Kindergarten.

That was when Henry knew there was something wrong in Storybrooke.

He said so to his mom, who just smiled and told him he was being silly. She kissed his head, hugged him, and gave him lasagna, just like she did every Monday night. She helped him with his homework, and she was so sure and right about everything that he believed her.

He wasn’t invited to many birthday parties, and even if someone asked him at school, if his mom heard about it, he wasn’t allowed to go. 

His mom was Mayor, and a lot of people were scared of her. He didn’t know why. Maybe because she was the boss of the whole town. He didn’t know, but sometimes, he felt kind of lonely when people in his class had parties and he couldn’t go. 

He didn’t have parties either. Not real ones. Mom would take him out to the diner for dinner or they would have a special cake, but no one really noticed that he was having a different birthday every year. Mom always counted the candles, smiling like he was something special, and he wondered why.

When he moved into third grade, there was a whole new class of faces. He snuck back to his old classroom once, and they didn’t even notice that he’d been missing. He even tried going back to the Kindergarten, and all his friends still remembered him, but they still looked the same and Jonny was still sitting in the sandbox eating the sand.

Henry told his mom again. 

It kept happening and it was all too weird.

Mom looked at him and for a second, he wondered if he was crazy. She was looking at him like he had said the moon was a paper cut-out or something. She stroked his face and called her ‘my little man’, and sent him to bed.

The next day, she took him to see Doctor Hopper.

Doctor Hopper was nice, but everyone at school called him the crazy-people doctor. He didn’t fix broken bones or do operations or even put on band-aids. He just put people on a couch and talked to them to see if they were crazy or not.

Henry didn’t think he was crazy, but it looked like his mom did.

She didn’t stay, and Doctor Hopper looked like he wished she would. 

“So, Henry,” he said, “your mom says you’re having some problems at school.”

Henry stared at him. “No, I’m not,” he said. “Mom sent me here because I’m the only boy in school who grew up.”

Doctor Hopper stared back at him. “What do you mean?”

Henry pulled his feet up on the couch and explained all the weird stuff he’d noticed: all the people who didn’t get old, all the people who looked exactly the same all the time, even the way his mom’s hair never ever changed or grew or anything, even though she had to sit him down and cut his hair every six weeks to stop it going in his eyes.

Doctor Hopper looked at him all calm and serious. “Why do you think that?” he asked.

Henry frowned. It wasn’t the right kind of question. “I don’t think it,” he said, “I know it. I went back to my old class and everyone was still there. No one moves grades when I do. No one gets any bigger. All my friends from Kindergarten are still in Kindergarten.”

“Are you sure you don’t just miss the friends you had when you were there?” Doctor Hopper suggested, and Henry knew he was just trying to be kind. He was looking at him almost the same way as mom, and Henry knew that wasn’t good.

“I know my friends,” he said stubbornly. “I was in Kindergarten with Jonny and now, he’s still in Kindergarten and I’m in third grade, and no one else sees it.”

They talk some more, and Henry wanted to throw stuff. Doctor Hopper was trying to be nice about it, but he was trying to persuade Henry to ignore what was right there. Of course people were growing, maybe he just didn’t notice. Of course things were challenging in his new grade, so no wonder he wanted to look back at his old classrooms.

When his mom collected him, Henry didn’t say anything to her.

She always promised she would trust him and look out for him, but now, when he told her the secret that was bothering him the most, she’d sent him to the crazy-person-doctor and the doctor thought he was crazy too. 

She tucked him into bed just like normal. She smiled like she didn’t think he was crazy. She read to him just like she always did. When she smoothed his hair and leaned down to kiss him, she smiled close and secret. 

“Maybe you’re like Peter Pan,” she said. “But you’re the boy who grew up.”

He stared at her, and that was when he knew his mom knew. She knew that people weren’t changing in Storybrooke. She knew that what he saw was real and it wasn’t right. She was trying to make him see the town like everybody else.

She smiled, stroking his hair, like she didn’t know.

“Good night, sweetheart.”

Henry turned over onto his side. “G’night, mom,” he whispered.

She switched off the light and shut the door. Henry stared at his nightlight. His mom knew there was something wrong and bad in Storybrooke, and she was lying to him and keeping secrets and pretending like he was crazy so no one else would know. He hugged his blankets closer to him. He didn’t know what was going on, but his mom knew, and he knew that he wasn’t going to stop looking until he found out.


End file.
